Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

On the local front:

A year ago today:
The state's highways and bridges need so much expensive work, and the state has so little money to pay for it, that officials are beginning to discuss drastic measures to raise money that include imposing tolls on such main highways as Route 95. That, and measures such as leasing state bridges or highways to private companies to maintain and operate in return for the tolls they would collect, are on the table at Governor Carcieri's Blue Ribbon Panel for Transportation Funding.

5 years ago today:
Cumberland's attempt to make a popular walking trail accessible to the disabled -- a project already bedeviled by setbacks -- runs into another obstacle. An archaeologist at the Department of Transportation found American Indian artifacts in the overturned topsoil along the 1.3-mile path leading to the Nine Men's Misery historic monument. It marks an uprising by Native American tribes against the colonists in 1676, during King Philip's War. "I found remains from forming stone tools," archaeologist Michael Hebert said. "In one case, I saw a concentration of shells that indicated a refuse pit from a meal." It's not clear how significant the site is, Hebert said. The state is bringing in a Connecticut-based archaeological consultant and an expert from the Narragansett Indian Tribe to determine that.

25 years ago today:
Providence College receives $2,500 in recognition of its switch from an oil-fired central heating system to one fueled by coal, a move that is expected to save the college more than $1 million per year. The college was one of 47 schools commended by the ninth annual Cost Reduction Incentive Awards Program, in a ceremony sponsored by the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the United States Steel Foundation Inc. to honor colleges and universities with innovative programs to cut costs.

On the international front:

2008 -- An assault by militants on a U.S. base close to the Pakistan border kills nine American soldiers and wounds 15 in the deadliest attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan in three years.

Read The Associated Press's Today in History.

Watch video highlights from Today in History.

 Tags  Highway tolls Indian artifacts Providence College

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